In an article regarding the food truck trend that’s driven New Yorkers to gulp goods hawked out of metal on wheels, the sub-headline reads
Right now, impermanence is the sexiest marketing tool.
The author of “Intentionally Temporary” — Bryant Urstadt — is a journalist (a scan of his clips suggests he crafts memorable pieces; I remember reading his piece about the FDR beautification guy in The New Yorker eight years ago) and not a marketer — and his editor probably came up with that sub-head. And yet I feel compelled to point out that impermanence is a marketer’s permanent marketing tool.
Why? Making the consumer sense scarcity futzes with their sense of supply and demand and shortens their own mental “buy now” timeline. Scarcity taps into our caveperson brains and makes us shoot the dang buffalo now because who knows when another might stroll by?
Modern cavewomanhood: CB2 is offering 15% off an entire day’s purchase if you bring in five canned goods between November 9 and 25. But I was there this past Wednesday night (11/4!) — and I decided not to save 15% by waiting a few days — because I wanted to buy a deeply discounted floor model as well as the last “LOVE” tattoo rug my eyeballs fancy.
The deeper Neuropsychology Of Why This Works is outside the scope of this post — but the point remains, “special sales”, “limited time only”, and “expiring offers” are to marketers what words are to journalists. We cannot market without the means of creating a sense of temporary — even if false and/or exaggerated.
Businesses who sell to other businesses can leverage this tactic as well — an example might be offering 20% off marketing fees for all new contracts signed by a particular date.
Right now, impermanence is the sexiest marketing tool.
A less effective yet more accurate version of this subhead?
Impermanence has always been one of the sexiest marketing tools.
20% off new blog-enabled website contracts signed by the end of the year if you mention this post :)
Photo taken in Berlin Germany; September 2005
